


wrap me around your fingers, break the silence open wide

by likelightninginabottle



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, Homelessness, Multi, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 06, The Bargaining Power of a Good Burrito, The Inherent Romanticism of Shaking Hands in an Empty Laundromat, The People We Grow With and the People We Grow Into, Touch-Starved, Yearning; Pining; and Denial; Oh My
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:20:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28899537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likelightninginabottle/pseuds/likelightninginabottle
Summary: Somehow, they owe each other everything, and yet, nothing at all.It'sbrutallyliberating.
Relationships: Liam Dunbar/Hayden Romero, Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken, Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken/Hayden Romero, Theo Raeken/Hayden Romero
Comments: 21
Kudos: 40





	wrap me around your fingers, break the silence open wide

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and welcome to the shitshow!
> 
> I've kind of wanted to write for these 3 for a while now, and I have a whole longfic planned out for them for whenever I finish "you only feel one emotion", but I just wanted to test the waters first. It's been really interesting so far, but all of this is HIGHLY experimental haha so I'm looking forward to seeing what y'all think
> 
> also, pls know that this whole thing is [emma's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrysprite/pseuds/cherrysprite) fault, so.
> 
> hope you enjoy!!

**From: Liam Dunbar**

_hey_

11:01 am

_pack mtng 2night @ 6_

11:01 am

_this is liam btw_

11:03 am

_dunbar_

11:03 am

_got ur number from scott_

11:04 am

_????? are u coming or what_

12:30 pm

\---

_everything okay?_

10:34 pm

_just lmk that you're alive_

10:34 pm

_theo_

10:36 pm

_come on please_

10:37 pm

\---

_guess this means you skipped town after all_

3:04 am

_you're such a dick, I can't believe you left without telling anyone_

3:04 am

_that's all you're good for in the end, isn't it_

3:04 am

_running away_

3:05 am

_don’t come back_

4:58 am

\---

It takes Hayden _every bit_ of the supernatural reflexes she possesses to not spill the takeout cups of guacamole she's balancing in her arms when she smells it.

Deep and earthy, familiar and brand new all at once, curling in the wind gently and innocuously like _it's belongs_ to someone gentle and innocuous, like it's not completely upending her world. Hayden follows it reflexively, tuning all her other senses out, nose tipped up slightly against the downwind as her feet move of their own accord, until she's frozen in front of a laundromat, staring.

He looks different. _Incredibly_ different from way back when, but his clothes were nicer and his hair was shorter and his smiles were always too charming and too sharp to do anything bite. Hayden doesn't think he smiles anymore, at all, really.

He doesn't look _too_ different from the last time she saw him, looking lost in a train station. Lost and half-alive. Everyone else at the station is cold and pristine. Untouched and perfectly pressed and unaware of their surroundings, but he looks _filthy_ and almost dead, and when his eyes meet hers, it feels like he can see right through her. Like he can see to the very core of her, and Hayden believes he _can_ , if he truly wants to. There's dirt on his face and his shirt is ripped and he doesn't look away from her for a long time, long after she shudders from the weight of his gaze, and breaks, turning to Mason instead, and tuning into the conversation.

She doesn't know why she's surprised at the gouges on his shirt and the sweat in his hair in that train station. She's seen him try to fight a two-hundred year old parascientist with his bare hands, she's seen him try to claw his own way up from hell. She's seen him have to be dragged down, screaming, by his long-dead, skinwalker-twisted, reanimated corpse of a sister, in order to finally go. She _knows_ he's a fighter.

It shouldn't surprise her that he fought, until his very last breath, but it does.

 _Why are you here_ , she had thought, with a bemused kind of vehemence. _You could've run. Why are you_ ** _here_** _?_

(Afterwards, afterwards, _afterwards_ , when the train station had merged downwards, back into Beacon Hills, and everyone was back, Liam barrels into her arms, curls his fingers gently around her head and presses their mouths together like he hasn't seen her in _years_ instead of _hours._ She smiles all the way through it, slinging her arms around his neck, and enjoying the warm, insistent, pressure of it, enjoying the familiar taste of his mouth -- a welcome relief from the _electricity_ that's been lingering in the back of her throat ever since a ghost rider wrapped its whip around her body -- until Liam pulls back, tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear, and asks, still breathless, " _Have you seen Theo_?"

" _Theo,"_ she echoes dumbly, because Liam looks _good_ all thoroughly-kissed, lips swollen and eyes hooded, and she's feeling a little muzzy _herself_ , and _Theo_ is--

Her thoughts stutter to a halt, self-preservative.

She frowns. Not because she's confused, even though she _is_ , but more because _she_ was still thinking about him -- the dirt bootprints he was leaving on the shiny linoleum and the blood on the underside of his jaw (and why was there _blood_ , there was so much _blood,_ what was he _doing_ ) -- and _it's jarring_ , almost, to hear his name spoken aloud, when he was taking up residence in her head, too -- jarring that Liam's asking about him, because he can be perceptive, sometimes, when he wants to be, but not _that_ perceptive.

Hayden's silence isn't an inquiry, not really, it's just her _processing_ , but Liam takes it as one, anyways.

"He saved my life," Liam says earnestly -- because everything Liam does is earnest; so genuine it makes her teeth ache, makes her want to cover his body completely with hers and hide him away until Beacon Hills fucks off and leaves them _alone_ \-- the words laid bare, stark-naked and completely honest, and Liam looks exhausted, but his eyes are still positioned somewhere over Hayden's shoulder, searching for someone who isn't there. "He was--" Liam says, voice hoarse, before he wraps his arms around her tighter, drags her in harder against his body, and huffs out a laugh into her hair with absolutely no humor in it. "He was the _bait_. He didn't-- he didn't _have_ to, but he _did_ , and I--"

Theo isn't there, because Theo isn't behind _Hayden_ , he's behind _Liam_ , and their eyes lock just as Liam says it. Something passes underneath the coolly detached mask he likes to pull on -- something turbulent; the disturbed waters underneath the placid lake surface -- and it's there for a solid _second_ , a flash of _something_ important, of _something_ honest -- the only honest feeling she's seen out of him, really, besides the acrid stench of pure _terror_ whenever one of them threatened to put him back into the ground -- as his eyes flick from hers, to the back of Liam's head. He's there one second, and he's gone the next, ducking behind someone else in the commotion of moving bodies, so quickly that Hayden can't even tell which direction he went in.

 _He saved my life_ , Liam had said. _He was the bait_.

Hayden thinks, _maybe we have more in common than we could ever know._

 _I don't know_ , Hayden could reply, is _tempted_ to reply, really, because she's kind of tired and achy and she just wants to tangle her fingers in Liam's hair and lick back into his mouth, and then, like, sleep for an entire day, or something. And besides, it's the truth.

 _He saved my life. He was the bait._ Hayden repeats it in her head, disbelieving, but mostly just processing. _Huh_ , she thinks eventually, as it sinks into her brain, as she catalogues the way Liam's head is still moving, the way he's still _searching_ , even with his face tucked into the crook of her neck. She catalogues it, like she catalogued the look in Theo's eyes when he first appeared in the station, wild and borderline feral, the look he shot her and Liam before pulling his little disappearing act -- far more dangerous, something else entirely, something that Hayden can't pick apart, something that Hayden thinks she might need to protect them from.

 _I don't know_ , Hayden could say, to protect them from that look, to draw Liam back into her embrace and keep him here, safe in her arms _. I don't know_ , Hayden could say, to keep them both away from someone who has tried to ruin _so_ much _. I don’t know_ , Hayden could say, except for how she doesn't really want to.

"I don't know," Hayden settles on eventually, giving into the temptation, just a bit. It's not as much of a relief as she thought it would be, so then, shortly after: "Let's go look."

It takes them both _far_ too long to realize that the seemingly absentminded path they've been taking through the school has actually been them following his scent, which is something that catches Hayden off guard.

"You--" Hayden frowns, thrown, "You know what he smells like?" and there's something _weird_ in her tone, something even _she_ doesn't know the meaning of, but Liam shoots her an even _weirder_ look back.

" _Yeah,"_ he says slowly. "Don't _you?"_

Hayden does, but that's a different story entirely. Liam's not Hayden, Liam didn't spend days wandering around Beacon Hills with the tugging of _pack_ in his head, drawing him to a pack of misfits and their equally-outcasted misfit leader. Liam didn't spend _days_ dreading his retaliation, constantly being on the lookout for his scent, for the sound of his footsteps, after he defected. Hayden knows what Theo smells like, because Hayden _had_ to know what Theo smells like. Even if he smells a little different nowadays, a little earthier ever since he came our of the ground, undercut with something _sharper_. Something that Hayden doesn't know how to name, the chemosignals too muddled for her untrained nose to pick apart.

Liam's still staring at her, waiting for a response. Hayden answers with a shrug, because it's all she can think to give him.

Eventually, they get to the guys locker room, entering before they take the time to stretch their senses out -- to get a _grip_ of the situation before they jump right into it -- but it's too late to back out, _literally_ , too late to _back out_ , because Liam makes the _loudest_ squeaking noise as he freezes in the doorway, and Hayden _barrels_ straight into his back, and Liam's looking studiously up at the locker room ceiling, and it takes Hayden a second to reorient, hear the noise of the shower, and look past Liam's shoulder and--

Yeah, that's a lot of bare skin.

He's standing under the spray, staring back at the two of them, the bewilderment actually _visible_ on his face, honest, hand stilled where it was scrubbing the grime off his body with a flannel that Hayden wonders about the origin of for all of two seconds, before she sees the ransacked _Lost and Found_ box in the corner.

"Uh," Theo says, frowning at them, looking as lost and off-footed as he did in the train station, and it's probably messed up, the visceral sense of satisfaction that it grants Hayden -- the all-knowing, constantly-planning, manipulative Chimera of Death thrown off-guard _by them --_ but she can't help it. "Can I _help_ you?"

 _"Hi,"_ Liam says nonsensically, determinedly still looking up at the ceiling, a flush working down his neck, pink spilling and spreading in a way that would make Hayden smirk, in a way that would probably make her press her palms to his heated flesh just to _feel_ , y'know, if Theo _fucking_ Raeken, wasn't standing just a couple feet away. Liam keeps his gaze trained up above, and it's cute, he's a gentleman.

Hayden _isn't_.

She looks, meeting Theo's eyes with a challenging gaze, enjoying the brief shift in the power-dynamic, a different kind of shift than when they were lugging him around the preserve in chains, because he was just _annoyed_ then. _Now_ , he's surprised. Bemused. He didn't expect this and Hayden _revels_ in the temporary absence of the walls he keeps up around him. At least, until he gets them back up.

" _Or,_ " he says, deliberately smarmy, and posturing, always posturing. "Did you come to help _me?"_ He angles his torso towards them, leaning against the shower wall and stretching himself out, and Liam's eyes are _shut_ now, even though he's still completely facing the ceiling, but Hayden makes _sure_ to keep her unimpressed gaze on Theo. She doesn't look down any further than his neck, she _refuses_ to grant him the satisfaction.

It's more difficult than she thought it would be, if she's being completely honest with herself. Which is troubling, because he's definitely half-assing this, whatever _this_ is. They're all exhausted, and Hayden doesn't know how he has the energy to keep up the act.

It's not that she cares about him, because she doesn't. He hasn't gained that privilege. She's here for one reason, and one reason only, and that reason is currently standing in front of her, clenching his fists, tipping his head back down to face Theo, but his eyes remain shut.

"That's not how you clean a wound," she offers neutrally, trying to give Liam some time to gather himself, to do what he needs to do in order to say whatever he feels like he _needs_ to say. Theo glances down at the shitty _, definitely_ unsanitary flannel, at the gash on the side of his torso, and shoots her a nonplussed look.

"Thanks," he replies sardonically. "But I've been at this since you were a kid. I don't need medical advice from _you._ "

Hayden just narrowly resists the urge to point out that _he_ was a kid too, the annoyance under her skin building, because he _always_ does this -- even when he was their Alpha, or whatever -- always pretended like he was _so_ much older than them, like he knew _so_ much more.

Theo winks at her, theatrical. "Doctors' son, you know how it is."

It's what finally get Liam to open his eyes, and he looks faintly nauseous. Hayden wonders what it's like, waking up every day to stretch a mask across your face so tight that you can do things like make jokes about the people who took you away when you were a child and molded you into a monster, until you could be a monster even without their help. A monster of your own volition, a monster all on your own.

" _Thank you_ ," Liam says, earnest as anything, so vulnerable that makes Hayden wince, makes her brace herself, makes her want to grab her by the shoulders and _shake him_ , scream at him about leaving himself unprotected, about showing the enemy his soft belly. _What are you doing_ , she wants to scream. _He's going to take your bared throat and slit it with his claws, and he's going to do it without looking and without caring, and I'm going to be the one with my heart bleeding out on the floor_.

Theo looks, somehow, more bewildered than before.

"You didn't have to," Liam continues, undeterred by the sudden silence, by the way Theo has started hunching in on himself, protective.

" _Didn't I?_ " Theo snaps back. "You don't think they would’ve sent me right back to--" he swallows, thickly, "right _back_ , if you didn't make it out alive? You don't think they would’ve pinned the blame on _me?"_

Liam ignores him completely, giving no indication that he's heard, besides the jumping of the muscle in his jaw, and the swirling scent of annoyance, agitation, _anger_ that's starting to swirl around them. She wraps her hand around his forearm from behind him, squeezes once, hopes it's enough.

Liam melts, just a little, into her touch, and she can't help but smile.

" _Thanks_ ," Liam repeats, through clenched teeth, and Theo's not facing them anymore, turned in the direction of the spray.

 _Protecting his own soft belly_ , Hayden thinks, because even after all this time, it surprises her. It surprises her with people like Scott and Liam, who bare their throat so _easily_ , wear their hearts on their sleeves, how it can make _other_ people feel cut open too. Hayden doesn't think she's ever seen Theo vulnerable like _this_ before.

With the privacy afforded to her by her position behind Liam, Theo turned away from the both of them, Hayden allows herself one long, indulgent look at the water glancing off of the muscles of his back, tensed and flexing. She doesn't know what Liam's waiting for, why he's gone silent, why he's standing there, watching Theo, instead of just going home and leaving this nightmare behind.

"Fuck off," Theo replies, quieter, absently. In a fucked up way, it kind of sounds like, _you're welcome_.

Hayden snorts, shaking her head, before making her way into Coach Finstock's office. She rolls open one drawer, and then another, and she has to rummage a little before she finds it. She walks back out, throws the first aid kit at Theo, who catches it against his water-slick chest, one-handed, reflexively, before his eyes flick back up to hers.

"For the record," Hayden says, "you're still an _asshole_." It comes out with more bite than she consciously intended -- sharp and raw, without the edges filed off. It says, very clearly: _I didn’t forget who you are. I didn't forget_ what _you are._ Says, _I didn't forget what you did. I don't think I'll ever forget, and it's no one's fault but your own._

"Noted," Theo replies, looking back down at the box of gauze and bandages, tone perfectly neutral, walls back up again, and it makes Hayden bristle, makes her _need_ to draw a reaction out of him, to _rip_ one out of him with her claws. She wants to see something, _anything_ , other than that unaffected mask, stretched tightly and perfectly over his face like a well-tailored suit. She wants to tear at his skin and see the ugly underneath, she wants to _ruin_ him. She wants to rip his fucking face off.

This time, it's _Liam's_ hand wrapping around _her_ forearm, tugging.

"We should go," he whispers, and she slumps, letting herself be caught, letting him wrap his arm around her waist and catch her like he always does.

"What," Theo sneers, "not gonna stay for the _show?"_ He stretches his arms up, and the muscles under his skin shift, and Liam moves _faster_ , frantic, tugging her _harder_ , which was probably Theo's _goal_ in the first place, the _asshole_.

She lets herself be pulled. They leave the school together, tired and relieved and falling asleep leaning into each other’s bodies.

Exactly a week later, Val decides the town is too dangerous, and they're moving soon.

" _Okay,"_ Liam says, when she finally breaks it to him, quiet and downcast, and she doesn't _like it_ when he looks like that. It makes her own eyes sting, sympathetic.

"It's _not_ ," she whispers back, "but it _has_ to be," and she wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him one last time, slow and sweet.

 _He saved my life. He was the bait_. It's the only thing that lets her move away, and still be able to live with herself. She can't look out for Liam anymore, not from all the way over there, but she rests, not easy, but definitely _easier_ knowing that _someone_ will.)

Through the glass of the front door of the laundromat, he looks different. His hair is longer, flopping down over his brow. The stubble has grown out and the clothes are more threadbare, and there are _bruises_ under his eyes, dark and purpling, and even when he's asleep, head tipped back against the washing machine, his face looks tired and drawn.

It looks so. . . Intrinsically _wrong_ , that it makes something twist in her gut uncomfortably, like a joint being bent back too far. And it's not that she's _worried_ about him, of course not, she _hates_ him -- hates him for what he did to Josh and Tracy, to Corey, to Scott, to _Liam(, to herself; even though in the days since, he looked at her like he killed her himself, and he_ did _, a little bit, but he also brought her back, so maybe it balances out in the end)_ \-- or, _really_ , _hates_ isn't the right word for it. _Hated_ , more like.

Maybe she hated him back then, back when he was sneering under the fluorescents of the boys locker room, cocky and vulnerable and defensive all at once, standing under the spray of the shower and sneering at the both of them.

She doesn't hate him anymore. Can't really bring herself to, not when Liam caught her up, told her how everything went to shit and she wasn't there, but _Theo_ was, dragging him out of trouble and into elevators over and over and over again.

Liam's too important, and she wasn't there, but Theo _was_ , and some might disagree, but _Hayden_ doesn't think she has the right to hate him anymore. She left and Liam could've _died_ so many times over, could've lost control, could've hurt someone else, but he _didn't._

 _"I think_ ," Liam had whispered once late at night, into her hair, " _I think you're my anchor_."

" _I know,"_ Hayden replied, and then she fucking left anyways. Threw Liam to the wolves like he didn't matter, left and told herself that it was because she was taking care of her sister, when maybe, she was only taking care of herself. Maybe a little bit of both, because life isn't that simple.

So there she is, standing in front of a laundromat, nearly certain that she doesn't hate Theo Raeken anymore, equally certain that she's never going to _like_ him either, and _almost_ just as sure that he wasn't in Beacon Hills anymore.

It's weird, seeing him after all this time. The last time she saw him, he was naked and bleeding, and that's probably part of it, but he still seems different. She swings open the door, before she can talk herself out of it.

"You look like _shit,"_ she blurts, before any of this even runs through her head, before she thinks _anything_ , really -- before she considers the consequences of her actions. Because all that's running through her mind is the guacamole that's trying to escape from her takeout bag, and how Theo somehow looks _worse_ than he did all those months ago at the train station.

He _jolts_ , back straightening and eyes flying open with a loud snarl, eyes already flared, claws out and ready, looking around wildly for a couple seconds, seemingly trying to get a grasp on reality, before his eyes finally focus on her, recognition flitting across his face, quick and nearly imperceptible. His eyes stay flared, the claws stay out, and Hayden is, bizarrely, almost _flattered._

"What are you _doing_ here?" she asks again, mouth running before her brain can catch up, and _here_ means so many things -- it means a _laundromat_ of all places, what the _fuck_ , it means _here_ in Beacon Hills, when Liam was so _sure_ that he'd left already, spent the entire week sulking about it and snapping at people, staring down at the blinking cursor on his phone screen until she forcibly snatched it away from him and distracted them both for a little while.

It wasn't a _condemnation_ , it was a _question,_ but Theo laughs, ugly and vitriolic, before his eyes finally fade back to green, as he slumps against the washing machine. " _Someone_ had to keep your _boyfriend_ from going homicidal while you ran off to _wherever."_

"He's not--" Hayden starts, reflexive from all the months while Val tried to cajole her into trying long-distance with Liam, and she had to reply with a _firm_ denial, because she couldn't _do that_ to him; shackle him to her while _she_ was the one running away. But, it's not quite true anymore, not since a couple days ago, not since she came _back_ , back for good.

("I missed you," she tried, and Liam's eyes were shuttered, and it hurt so _bad_ because she remembered when she could read every one of his feelings right there on his face. His expression had been inscrutable, but _tired_ , and she had to make an _effort_ to swallow past the lump in her throat. She doesn't owe him anything -- she'd _seen_ the death count the hunters had left on Beacon Hills -- the deputies, the slaughtered pack members, all of it. All she has is Val and all Val has is _her_ and _neither_ of them would survive burying the other, and so she left, because Hayden was always good at making the difficult decisions -- the _necessary_ decisions.

He doesn't owe _her_ anything either.

"I need some time," he replied, voice low and serious, "to think."

It's not a question, not a request for permission, or anything of the sort, but Hayden nods in response anyways. "Okay," she replies, and she takes some measure of pride in the fact that her voice doesn't crack.

"Okay," Liam whispered back.

Her and Val are more or less settled into their old house, and Liam climbs up the tree next to her bedroom two nights later, letting himself in through the window, and before she can even muster up a greeting, he's whispering, "I missed you too," and wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing her up against the wall, and kissing her slow and deep and desperate like he used to and she sighs into the warm familiarity of it, lets herself melt against the hard planes of his body for just a second, before she starts pushing back.

He pulls back from her mouth, hands absently flexing in her hair. "I'm _sorry,_ " he says, looking a little lost, "you _left_ , and I just needed--"

Hayden grabs his face before he can finish, or, for god's sake, _apologize_ again. " _Don't,_ " she warns, hands anchored at the sides of his head, and he feels solid and real and _here_ when she pulls him in, promises, "you have _nothing_ to apologize for," and turns them around, pushing _him_ up against the wall, and kissing him stupid.

They don't talk for a while after that.)

Theo hears the denial, but he doesn't seem to note the way she swallows it back down, retracting it, mostly because he's avoiding looking right at her. His nostrils _do_ flare, and he looks almost startled for a second, eyes flicking up to her own, before they _immediately_ flit away, _panicked_.

In hindsight, Hayden probably should've avoided thinking about that night at all, in supernatural company.

"Right," Theo says, voice gone a little gruff as he stares determinedly at the floor. "It's really none of my business. But, I _do_ have as much right to be here as _you_ , so if you just came in here to--"

" _What?_ " Hayden interrupts, startled at the sudden turn this conversation has taken, the defensive hunch of his shoulders. " _No,_ I just--" she huffs out a breath, frustrated, because of _course_ he has to make this difficult. "I didn’t know you were still in town," she settles on eventually, crossing her arms over her chest. "You're dodging Liam."

It's not a question, and she doesn't do both of them the insult of framing it like one.

Theo stays tensed up for all of five seconds before he deflates, slumping miserably. "Just trying to stay alive," he says, apropos of absolutely nothing at all, even if Hayden thinks it's the first honest thing he's said today. It takes her a second, but then she scowls.

"What, too much of ' _being the bait'_ for you?" she sneers, unkind, taking a perverse kind of pleasure from the crack in his stupid mask, from the flinch it elicits.

She takes much less pleasure in the fact that he still won't meet her eyes.

"Why are you _here?"_ he asks, sounding desperate, scrubbing a hand across the underside of his jaw. "What do you _want_ from me?"

"Why didn't you reply to any of his texts?" Hayden shoots back, fists clenched. "He was worried, you know?"

"Oh, screw _you_ , Romero," he spits, so abruptly sharp and _cutting_ , that it takes her aback, blinking dumbly at him for a second or two, but that's all he needs to grab his duffel bag off the washer and swing it over his shoulder, to make his way all the way to the front door.

"Don't tell him," Theo says, low and threatening. "Don't tell him I was here." They both know he has nothing to threaten her with, not anymore. It's more of a plea than anything, and he must realize, because he looks disgusted, all of a sudden, but he's _leaving_ and Hayden feels clumsy, flat-footed, an uncharacteristic kind of desperate as she scrambles for the right words before he leaves and Liam never sees him again.

"Why _not?"_ she finally demands. It sounds petulant, like a child, and she braces for the verbal onslaught of patronizing remarks, only to be met with a somber, contemplative kind of silence. His words sounded like a threat but they weren't, her words don't sound like one, but they _are._

These are facts that they both know.

“You can’t really want me here,” Theo says disbelievingly, shaking his head, and Hayden can't tell which one of them he’s trying to convince. " _You_ of all people” he says. “You can’t possibly _want_ me around—” he swallows, loudly, “around _him.”_

He inundates the pronoun with something _heavy_ , something _meaningful_ , and it grates on Hayden's nerves that she can't quite untangle all the notes in his voice.

"Yeah, well," Hayden replies awkwardly, "it's not really my decision to make." She shoots a pointed look at him. "It's not really _yours_ either." She crosses her arms over her chest, sharpening her gaze. "Give me _one good reason_ why I shouldn't tell him."

He sighs, scrubbing a tired hand across his eyes, and then down his face. The rasp of the stubble against his palm echoes loudly in the empty room, and Hayden tracks the motion with her eyes. Theo finally meets her eyes, and it's the same feeling as all those months ago, in the train station -- like he's looking right into her.

He's quiet for a bit, and Hayden's pretty sure he's trying to work out a lie in his head. She sharpens her gaze, threatening.

"If they don't remember I'm here," Theo finally says, tone deliberately neutral, "then they can't send me _back."_

Even with his tone devoid of any emotion, it's honest, _so_ honest that it almost _bowls_ Hayden over completely. _Achingly_ honest, and she almost wishes he had just _lied_ after all.

She doesn't need to ask what _back_ means; she already knows, even if she doesn't know the _specifics._ He would tell her, probably, if she asked right now, because she has something over him, and she's always been _curious_ , but it seems like it would be crossing a line that Hayden is already toeing.

"Just because you ignore him," Hayden says, slowly, like he's especially stupid, in the hopes that it'll piss him off, shake him out of this depressing kind of reticence, "doesn't mean he _forgets_ you." It doesn't work. It doesn't get him riled up, he just stares at some indistinct point over her shoulder, spaced out, and Hayden has to sigh, frustrated. "And _besides,_ Liam is," she sighs, " _Liam_. He wouldn't--"

"He _could._ And, he might not have a choice," Theo says, quietly resigned. "Don't tell him," he adds, sounding pained, and something inside Hayden's gut twists.

"He has the pieces of the sword," she says firmly. " _He_ does, and no one else," and _wow_ , she doesn't know how her life has spun out of control so quickly and thoroughly that she's trying to comfort _Theo Raeken_ , but the alternative is doing something bizarre, like _thanking_ him.

Hayden left, but Theo was there. Hayden ran away from Liam and danger and Beacon Hills, and Theo, despite how his self-preservation instincts must have been _screaming_ , runs _toward_ them, apparently.

Theo did what Hayden couldn't -- what Hayden _didn't_ \-- and _that’s_ what drives her to say, "No one's putting it back together, if _he_ has anything to say about it," and what propels her forward toward him, even though he _immediately_ moves back, startled, eyes a little wild in a way that makes her frown. Makes her want to reach out and wrap a hand across the bare skin of his forearm, tug him closer, but it's such a weird, flitting urge that she smothers it immediately, taking one step back, and then another.

The path between Theo and the front door his clear, and he looks skittish and absolutely _no_ closer to telling Liam he's still _here_ than when she arrived. But Hayden is _tired_ of the sulking -- _Liam's_ sulking, which has last a _week_ now, but also _this._ Whatever strange thing Theo's doing, looking tired and lonely in empty laundromats during weekend afternoons.

"If you text Liam back," she tries, "I will give you. . ." she reaches into the large bag, rummaging around blindly until her fingers finally close around something warm, which she pulls out, examining it. " _This_ burrito."

Theo blinks. " _What_ ," he manages, blankly.

She wiggles the burrito, hoping that makes it look enticing. Theo looks at her like she's grown a second head, and makes _no_ move to take the burrito, despite Hayden being able to _hear_ his fucking stomach, and Hayden sighs, exhausted.

"The way I see it, you have two options," Hayden offers, tone deceptively light. "Either you take the burrito, text him back, and try to explain to him why you thought _ignoring him_ was the best strategy," she says, " _or, I_ tell him, and you _pray_ you can outrun him, before he finds you and breaks your pretty face. No burritos involved."

"Aw, you think I'm pretty?" Theo coos, but it's an absentminded, worn quip -- one to distract her, clearly, while he deliberates.

"I don't need your food," he says, abrupt, something strange in the cadence of his voice, the consonants too sharp around the edges, but he _still_ doesn't sound like he's come to a decision.

Hayden groans. "How'd I _know_ you'd be weird about the food," she says, mostly to herself, but it makes Theo frown. "Dude, it's _fine."_

He stares at her for a couple seconds, and then:

" _Two_ burritos," he finally says, "and some guac."

He doesn't really have the upper hand here, but Hayden doesn't say that. She's catalogued the bits and pieces of him like she catalogues everything; like Val has _taught_ her to. He looks pale and drawn and there are shadows underneath his eyes, and it looks like he's lost some weight. Hayden still doesn't like him, but she can't help but feel like she _owes_ him, even after everything he did.

Hayden left her heart in Beacon Hills, and Theo protected it with everything he had. It's that simple.

Also, Hayden always gets extra, because her and Val like leftovers, and _two_ burritos is a huge step forward from _no_ burritos, considering how Theo's been _carefully_ avoiding looking at the takeout bag in her hands.

" _Deal_ ," she says quickly, instinctively holding her hand out, which, _okay_ , is a _little_ strange, and she regrets it as soon as she does it, but it definitely doesn't warrant Theo sending her the _weirdest_ look she's ever gotten.

He stares down at her hand, bewildered, but it's too late, she refuses to drop it. She's committed to doing this.

He frowns up at her, but Hayden just meets his eyes, unrelenting.

" _Fine_ ," he sighs quietly, and reaches up to slowly, carefully wrap his hand around hers.

His palm is hot like a _brand_ against the cold skin of her hand, and she almost _shudders_ \-- tenses her muscles at the _last_ possible moment to suppress it. He's still staring down at their hands, but Hayden can't fault him, because so is _she_. She can't help but make comparisons, draw parallels -- his fingers are a little longer, a little thinner. More graceful than Liam's, all wide knuckles and clever fingers, and Hayden doesn't even _know_ why she made the comparison in the first place.

 _He has nice hands_ , she muses absently. Then again, he has nice _everything_ , as she can personally confirm, but that's neither here nor there. His hand grips, just the slightest bit of pressure, and as the warmth of his palm seeps into _hers_ , she can't help but detachedly, clinically, wonder if the _rest_ of his body is this warm too. Until she flashes back to the locker room, all those months ago, and all of a sudden it's _anything_ but detached, _anything but clinical,_ and she has to _snatch_ her hand back all of a sudden, inhaling sharply, pulse _pounding_ in her ears as she takes a step back.

When she looks back up at him, he's several feet away from where he was before, back pressed all the way against the wall. His hands are shoved unceremoniously into the pockets of his worn jeans, and he's back to not meeting her eyes, and Hayden has to bite back a frustrated noise.

She digs up another burrito out of the bag and a cup of guac, holding it up for him to take, but he doesn't make a move to approach her. In fact, he seems to press himself _harder_ into the wall behind him. Hayden sees his hands flex in his pockets absently, and, gritting her teeth, she places the burritos on top of the washing machine.

She doesn't know why she feels disappointed. It's a reaction so _bizarre,_ that she files away for later.

" _Text him,"_ she snaps, before making her way to the front door and exiting the laundromat. When she pulls her car around, she sees him one last time through the glass. He's still pressed against that wall, slumped down to the floor, head in his hands. The burritos lay untouched.

The same thing in Hayden's gut that's been turning and coiling _twists_ , and it takes an _effort_ to press down onto the accelerator and _leave_ the parking lot, instead of marching back in there and breaking his nose (that, is, if he even _lets_ her get that _close)_.

Her claws sprout reflexively, and then retract, from where her fingers are white-knuckling the steering wheel. She grits her teeth furiously, looks straight ahead, and _drives._

**Author's Note:**

> okay, this is the first thing I've ever written that I didn't outline beforehand, so, it's been interesting! way more freeform than everything else for sure, I only have a vague idea of where this is going. let me know what you thought!!
> 
> Tell me what you liked, what you didn't!! As always, all feedback is welcomed and highly appreciated :)  
> If you want to come scream at me on tumblr, feel free to find me at [inabottlelikelightning](https://www.inabottlelikelightning.tumblr.com/)


End file.
